Monitoring the levels of various chemical agents in human serum is important in the treatment and control of diseases as well as in law enforcement.
Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease which requires monitoring of blood glucose for proper control. Repetitive determination monitoring of blood glucose is necessary to adequately provide controlled insulin dosing. Currently accurate monitoring is available only by taking and analyzing a blood sample. This invasive procedure is time consuming and not practical for continuous monitoring.
Measurement procedures in law enforcement, including those for intoxication with alcohol, currently utilize indirect tests such as a breath analyzer, motor coordination tests, or require a blood sample. The drawing of a blood sample is an invasive technique which generally necessitates that the blood sample be sent to a laboratory for analysis. Delays in drawing the sample reduce the utility of the test results.
Emergency medical personnel need to be able to immediately, accurately and reliably assess patients' blood levels of both illicit and licit drugs and make confident, correct clinical treatment decisions.
Compliance of the patients with treatment regimes can dramatically improve, and relevant serum level diaries can become easy to maintain by patient or physician where appropriate (e.g., lithium carbonate, tegretol, sodium divalproex, glucose, various hormones, etc.) with an accurate non-invasive quantitative analysis device. In a truly emergent situation "Waiting for the tox-screen to come back" can become a thing of the past, and such acute care treatment can become safer and more reliably appropriate.
The dangers of contacting blood from an individual who is HIV positive or who has Hepatitis are well known. Extreme caution must be taken in drawing and processing the blood samples. Permission of the individual or a court order may be required to obtain the blood sample. Typically, the sample must be drawn by a medically qualified individual. Also, the venipuncture of an immune-compromised individual is, in itself, a risk to that person.
Therefore, there is a need for a non-invasive quantitative determination of substances contained within a person's blood stream.